The Yas Marina circuit was extensively overhauled two years ago in the hope of aiding overtaking and making its Formula 1 race, usually the season-closer, less processional.
The alterations involved removing several slow corners and replacing them with simpler and less tight bends. While they were generally well-received, the two races held since then indicate they haven’t radically changed how easily drivers can race at the circuit.Speaking after yesterday’s qualifying session the two drivers who occupy the front row of the grid offered similar views on what change the track still needs.
“The only thing I would like to change is just the off-camber corners,” said pole winner Max Verstappen. “I think that doesn’t really help the racing.
Charles Leclerc agreed. “It’s very difficult to follow in those off-camber corners,” said the Ferrari driver. “During qualifying, as soon as you get it wrong but even by five or 10 centimetres that has huge consequences, which I like it in qualifying but I agree with Max that for the race I don’t think that’s great because you struggle a lot to follow in those corners.”
He would also like to see changes to the off-camber corners. “I think it would be nice,” said Leclerc, “it will definitely help racing. It’s a track where there’s already quite a lot of overtaking opportunities, but definitely that will make it even better.”
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They are not the first drivers to express this view. Before the track was overhauled drivers like Esteban Ocon pointed to the off-camber corners as a reason why racing has been poor at the circuit. So why weren’t they changed when the opportunity arose two years ago?
Driven International, the designers behind the changes, did examine the possibility of easing the camber on those corners at the time. However as managing director Ben Willshire told RaceFans at the time, lowering one side of a corner while raising another has complicated and expensive implications.
“If you’re flipping cambers around over the width of the circuit, which is between 12, 14 or even 20 metres wide in some areas, you end up with something like 200 millimetres of change,” he pointed out.
That would mean the edge of the track is now higher than the run-off area. A large area to the outside of the track would therefore have to be reconstructed wherever the track is changed.
“You’d end up reconstructing essentially the entirety of the track from the ground up, including all of the run-off areas, all the barrier lines, all of the service road,” said Willshire. “So it goes from being a reprofiling project to a complete full rebuild of the entire sequence which obviously is not practical.”
Yas is an artificial island and the circuit originally created for it by designers Tilke was the most expensive ever constructed when it opened in 2009. But not all of the design choices made at that time can be easily reversed, and some of its off-camber corners appear to be here to stay.
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Jere (@jerejj)
26th November 2023, 9:48
I don’t find those corners too off-camber, especially the three around the hotel in their current form, so I’m perfectly okay with the track in its present configuration.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
26th November 2023, 10:07
How can you dispute the drivers that actually drive the track? Serious question.
Jere (@jerejj)
26th November 2023, 11:32
@fer-no65 I’ve driven the track virtually on the official games & even otherwise, they don’t look unnecessarily off-camber.
melanos
26th November 2023, 16:30
Are the virtual tracks so accurate for details such as camber?
(I ask for sheer ignorance, not malice)
Anyway I do like well-cambered, wide corners, allowing for different race lines. We have that in Zandvoort, and pretty much nowhere else. That’s why Zandvoort is one of my faves.
S
27th November 2023, 5:28
Yes, and much finer detail than that.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
26th November 2023, 10:21
You should get a job with Tilke. You could be his yes man.
S
26th November 2023, 10:26
Tilke makes what his customers want to buy.
As for the track – again, it’s really only a problem with F1 cars. The main problem with most circuits is F1 cars.
MichaelN
26th November 2023, 10:04
Off-camber corners can be a bit obnoxious, but they’re also part of the challenge.
After all, its not just the chasing driver who can get it wrong.
As always, a mix of styles makes the circuit interesting and plays to the different strengths of each car.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
26th November 2023, 10:08
The king of the badly designed tracks. They started with a clean sheet in the form of an empty desert, and a blank cheque and they ended up with this piece of…
S
26th November 2023, 10:22
Did you see the F2 feature race?
Regardless of what you think of the track – proper racing cars just put on an absolute cracker. One of the best races of the year – in any series.
F1, on the other hand, can’t put on a decent race anywhere.
I wonder why that is….. Could it be that F1 is the problem, and not the track…?
Yes (@come-on-kubica)
26th November 2023, 10:39
Mind-boggling. The quicker the oil becomes worthless the better.
melanos
26th November 2023, 16:35
hey, we need to go nuke in order to improve F1 circuits, LOL. But yes. it would be a much better world with obsolete, dirt-cheap fossil fuels which no one has a use for. Alas, aviation fuel will be tough to replace.